


above the stars

by boleynqueens



Category: The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Private Investigator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-23 22:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleynqueens/pseuds/boleynqueens
Summary: anne boleyn is a private investigator. henry tudor is both her ex-boyfriend, and her former and most lucrative case.





	1. end of the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> "...but that which is written in the Scripture of the prince of pride: 'I will climb up into heaven; I will set my throne above the stars'..."
> 
> \--Reginald Pole
> 
> insp by the plot of 'The Mystery of Mercy Close' by Marian Keyes

**2008**

He calls her when she’s in line for coffee, the ringtone jingles louder than the coins she counts out at the register. He calls her when she’s driving and she cusses, rummaging around her bag with one hand on the wheel at a red light. Horns blare behind her as she declines it with a jab of the thumb.

He calls again, and again, and _again_ , the rings picking up one after the other as she drives, on endless loop, menacing and metallic and relentless and eerily cheery, like a theme song in a horror movie.

Whatever he wants from her, he must want it desperately-- he’s always been on the psychotic side of persistence, as long as he has an aim, she remembers. Anne doesn’t care, whatever it is-- she has her own problems right now, and she doesn’t want to speak to him again, and she’s pretty sure he’d settled on the same. 

They aren’t the kind of exes that stayed friends after splitting, not even acquaintances, really, not even in that awkward, forced way. Their break had been mutual, she supposes, in the technical definition of the term-- in that they both wanted to end it, and said so-- but certainly not amicable. No ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, rather ‘it’s you and it’s you and it’s _you’_ (only the vicious twin version of its rom-com confession counterpart) and ‘I’m better than you’ and ‘I never want to see you again.’

And she hasn’t seen him since. And plans to keep it that way. So she turns her phone off, mid-ring.

There’s no one she really wants to talk to right now, anyway.

* * *

Her sister will email, Anne figures, and does, the subject line full of question marks. Anne skims it from her position in bed, laptop opened, and types out:

> _‘Sorry, battery died. Getting new one tomorrow. x’_

Presses send, and leans back into her pillows, gently, so as not to disturb her cat, perched near them and sleeping.

The response is almost instant:

> _‘Ok. Let me know when you do. Offer still stands.’_

Anne reads, digests, and pushes the screen closed till it clicks.

* * *

Anne’s restless and jumpy for the next few hours after, unable to settle on any single task. She could go downstairs, walk to the corner-store and at least get some snacks—but to do so would risk running into her landlord.

Liz Phair croons from her stereo as Anne half-heartedly sorts her boxes, cleans out the litterbox, takes the trash out to the garbage-chute in the outside hallway, and starts a load of laundry (sheets and towels), padding through her apartment with bare feet.

Pale rain falls against the windows as she sits on her floor, the television turned on to MTV but muted, and paints her toenails atop the Sports section of yesterday’s paper using emerald-colored polish.

By the time it’s dark, she remembers her laundry and puts it in the dryer, twisting its timer and pushing it to start as her cat twists around her legs, languidly rubbing her head against Anne’s calves.

* * *

It’s pouring in earnest now, thundering, and she’s chilly enough to pull her comfiest hoodie on, which she does; nearly getting the zipper stuck when the knocking on her door startles her.

It startles her far more than the clap of thunder preceding it did.

Anne peers through the peephole, her breath catching in her throat.

She lays a hand flat against the whorls on the grainy wood, tracing the place it looks like a sideways eye, trying to reclaim her breath.

The knocking starts again, louder, and she feels her jaw set in resolve. She jerks away from the door to turn the volume up on the stereo in turn—since changed to Fiona Apple.

> [_You fondle my trigger, then you blame my gun_ —](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfTNpbraBbI)

“I know you’re there, I can hear your music.”

Anne presses the ‘stop’ button, listening as it spins around a few final turns, squeaking along at the sudden halt.

She walks back to the door, places the chain on the fastener, and yanks it far enough that he can only see half her face.

“You are scaring my cat.”

“You don’t _have_ a cat.”

“I _do_ have a cat—what do you _want_ , Henry?”

“You know, if you’d answered your phone, I wouldn’t have had to come here—”

“You shouldn’t have come here at all, for any—"

“And scare your imaginary cat—”

“She is, _real_ —”

“I went to your office first—imagine my surprise, finding it’s an H&R Block now—”

“I’m relocating. _What_ do you want?”

“Well,” he says, tucking one fist under a bearded chin, tilting his head upon it, “I _want_ …many things. However, I _need_ —”

“We’re not having sex, Henry.”

“ _Aw_ ,” he says, affecting a pout, tutting, laughing ( _laughing_! _He has the audacity to **laugh**_ ), “ah, _no_ , what I—”

“You are _such_ an asshole,” she snaps, making to close the door, but he pushes it from the other side, stopping when he sees her expression at _that_ \--

“Let me start again—I am here,” Henry says, carefully, one palm on the door, the other hand pinching the bridge of his large nose, “because…I need your help.”

There’s his gaze, electric and blue and heavily, steadily, unflinchingly meeting hers, all the same things as last time—except last time, all these things were accompanied with far harsher words. 

_I never want to see you again_ ; but he's seeing her now. 

“That all? Well, you can’t have it. Goodbye,” Anne says, reaching for the doorknob.

“I didn’t come empty-handed, if that’s what you think.”

He shifts, out of frame, before materializing again, proffering a bottle of wine.

“Can’t fit it through that,” he says, gesturing to the space between the door, “so…?”

“You bought that?”

“Yes, I bought this.”

“So no one’s tailing you anymore?”

“So no one’s tailing me anymore.”

Anne pauses, considers— both that leonine smirk, and how good wine sounds to her now, with none in the cupboard, and a stacked pile of bills on the very corner of her dining table that she’s too scared to peek at.

“However long it takes me to finish a glass,” she says, taking the chain off the latch.

* * *

**2003**

“Let go of me, Mary—"

“Please don’t make a scene—”

“I have no intention of doing so, I just want to ask—”

“Well, if it’s what you think, then let’s just go somewhere else—”

“If you know that she is, just _tell_ me, and I won’t have to bother her—”

“I _told_ you I don’t, he doesn’t _share_ things like that with me, Henry—”

“Off you go, then!”

Anne glances up again from her textbook to the two arguing by the sugars and canisters of milk at the café she sits at; watches the young woman, fuming, but no longer with her hand on the man’s arm.

She returns to the page, not wanting to be nosy...or appear nosy, rather.

The chair across from her squeaks.

Anne looks up again, eyes lighting upon the familiar face seated across from her, and all its familiar features and accoutrements: the heart-shaped mouth, blue eyes framed with nearly invisible lashes, the of stubble adorning it, the tousled red hair framing it, the collar tucked into the sweater underneath it.

“Evening,” he says, large hands folded in front of him, seated from a distance.

Anne smiles, blandly but politely, as one does when a stranger approaches them in public:

“Evening.”

“You’ll have to excuse me, you just looked— _so_ familiar to me. Have we met?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she says, pleasantly enough, and after a beat of consideration, gaze scanning (as if for potential recognition) over him, with her hand still resting on the page, “but I’m an actor, so maybe that’s why I seem it.”

It’s her easiest cover story for the occasional ‘you look familiar’ she gets—near everyone in LA is, or trying to be—and it has the convenience of being technically true. Although, only accidentally—a friend of hers with a casting director friend with a breakdown of ‘girl in twenties, LOTS of sex appeal but not model-type’ had shown the latter her picture and the rest had been history.

“Oh, maybe—would I have seen you in anything?”

“Probably not,” she says, sweetly, “I haven’t really gotten much work since moving here—just a commercial.”

 _Dating website_.

“Right. I’m not sure that’s it, though—were you in here last week?”

“No, I’ve never been here before. I don’t live in the neighborhood, actually, but my friend does—they’re out of town and I was watering their plants for them.”

“And studying?” he asks, gesturing to her open book.

“Yes.”

“May I see?”

“Sure,” she says, pushing it over, watching as he turns it so he can read.

Anne watches those at the other tables with envy—their ease, their light conversation, their mirth—then watches, uneasily, as he pages through to the front.

“Published…1995?” 

Anne shrugs.

“Where do you go to school?”

“USC.”

“So you’d have an ID card on you, then.”

“Why, are you a cop?” she asks, laughing, “This about the sugar packets I slipped into my purse?”

“No,” he says, laughing as well, and then… a switch flicking, his eyes darkening, he settles back further in his seat with an air of gravity and asks:

“Are _you_?”

“ _No_ ,” she says, stretching the word out (her attempt to sound bemused, but indulgent); she lifts the student card from where it hangs by her neck, and hands it over.

He thanks her, and looks it over.

“‘1994,’” he reads aloud from the back, pale eyebrows ratcheting upwards, then looking back up at her, “long time to be in college, no?”

“I dropped out a few years ago. Finishing up my degree now.”

“ _Hmm_. And you were brunette,” he says, holding the card up and examining the photo from a different angle, then, lowering and handing it back, “a better look, I think.”

“If you’re trying to hit on me,” Anne says, taking it back from his hand and sliding it into the laminated pouch attached to the loop of string, “you’re doing a bad job.”

“I’m not trying to hit on you,” he says, leaning back in his seat, arms crossed, “I’m trying to figure out how long it’s been since my father hired you as a P.I.”

Anne pinches the underside of her elbow, schooling her face in blank puzzlement before saying:

“I don’t follow.”

“You _do_ follow,” Henry says, tapping the side of his nose, “you follow me. To my grocer, to the park, to the bar I met a friend at a few weeks ago… and to this café, where I meet up with my sister once a week.”

“Like I _said_ ,” she says, slowly, “I haven’t been here before.”

“No, you were in here last week. I _thought_ I hadn’t seen you for two weeks or so, so I’d started to think I was being paranoid about seeing you everywhere. But now I realize I _did_ see you here last week, and everywhere else…it’s just that you were blonde. As you are now.”

Anne touches the end of her long hair, reflexively, dumbly, at its mention.

“You look pale. Are you alright?”

She swallows nothing, throat dry —reaches for her cup of water.

This has never happened to her before.

She can’t look at him, yet can’t look anywhere but him—somehow, he takes up all the color in the room. Bright and saturated—somehow nearly jewel-toned, somehow the most present.

“I don’t mind,” he says gently, smiling, “I just wanted to know. It’s what he did last time I got out of rehab. It’s his way of showing he cares.”

Anne closes her book—there’s not much point in it, now. He’s already revealed it as the prop it was—a relic she’d been too lazy or sentimental to sell.

“They are…limited,” he says, chuckling, then:

“Anyway. I won’t keep you. I’m going home…if that saves you some time. I’m sure you know where it is.”

“I don’t stake out your apartment at night,” she says, rolling her eyes, “when would I sleep?”

“Oh. What _do_ you do? Granted, it’s not likely I’m driving off somewhere with my suspended license, but—”

“I’ve paid every cab company in the area to call me if someone in your complex orders one at night. And someone that works for me stakes it out for me.”

“Smart,” Henry says, picking up his to-go cup as he scrapes the chair backwards, “well…see you soon, I guess.”

* * *

The next morning, Anne figures, marks the beginning of the end, that the cappuccino the secretary knew to make her, the one she clutches as she waits in the chilly office of the partner of this law firm, will be her last.

She could’ve done this over the phone, she supposes, but she’d wanted to give the courtesy of an in-person…well, inevitable resignation. Something approximating two weeks’ notice; in any event, she’d figured the consideration would be appreciated—she hadn’t realized she was a secondary hire, once removed, if so it means the client that hired her actually answers to someone else.

And he must—his last name isn’t Henry’s.

And there’s that pleasantly lilting, perfectly even voice, filling the room as Thomas Wolsey swans his way across the antique Aubusson carpet, over to his chair, taking a seat:

“Anne…to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“He knows.”

He sighs, templing his hands over his nose, usually mild blue eyes filling with concern. 

She doesn’t know it yet, but it is, in fact, only the end of the beginning.


	2. an insult (or two or three)

**2008**

Down it goes, onto the coffee table: bottle of wine, napkins, the shopping bag on the cushion next to where he sits.

“Did you bring—”

“Cups? Yes,” Henry says, brandishing disposable crystal goblets in their plastic case last, “I know you hate washing up.”

 _He exaggerates, as always_ —she is _fine_ with washing up, even if she doesn’t do it within _T-minus ten seconds of the dish touching the sink_ ; but all her glasses are stuffed with newspaper, some in storage, anyway, so it’s just as well.

Anne catches a glimpse of him going for the inner-pocket of his leather jacket, knows the question he’ll call out before he does as she walks to her bedroom:

“Mind if I smoke?”

“Sure, if you open the window,” she calls back, ridding herself of the hoodie once she gets to her room— _maybe she’ll get lucky, and lightning will strike him, too._

“And give me one,” she says, returning with a bra clasped under her tank top (white with bunched straps, long graphic of the Rolling Stones tongue on the front), ashtray and lighter in hand, the former which she puts on the table.

He grimaces but obliges; she reclines in the chair across him with the cigarette wedged between her fingers.

“I don’t know why you won’t just _buy_ them if you want to smoke—”

“Because,” Anne says, putting it in between her teeth, “if I bought them, I would be a smoker.”

Lights, drags, exhales:

“And I, am not a smoker. See?” she says, smiling and pointing to her teeth.

“See, you do that as if our teeth don’t look the same,” he says, mirroring her gesture, plume of smoke rising from his own hand.

“Yes, because you use Pearl’s every day and you drink anything that’s not clear with a straw, and you go to the dentist, like, twice a month—”

“I do not go twice a month—”

“—because you are a _complete_ freak—"

“Well, now you’re just being mean—”

“—and you’re _so_ vain.”

“Okay, Carly Simon.”

His gaze drops to the ashtray, then returns to Anne, before he leans to tap his cigarette over it, eyebrows raised.

“ _Sorry_ if my ashtray’s not masculine enough for you, but you’re just going to have to deal—”

“Did I say anything?”

“You did not need to.”

The ashtray in question is molded into the shape of a seashell, ridges included, pink as liquid hand-soap. She bought it at a flea market.

“What happened to the one I made you?” he asks.

“If you mean the one that was supposed to be a bowl—”

“There wasn’t another one—”

“—and ended up looking like a UFO, it’s probably under a stack of newspapers in some hoarder’s house.”

Henry squints at her, using his free hand to push his hair out of his face, the only sound in the living room at that moment his evident dissatisfaction and the rain, filling the room with its echo from the pavement outside.

“Meaning I sold it at a garage sale,” she says finally, scooping up the glass he poured for her and taking a sip.

“Wow,” he says, flatly, stubbing his own out, only half-smoked (he only buys 100’s).

“Well, you refused to come over to pick up any of your shit,” she says, twirling the ends of her own hair, “if you recall.”

“But that wasn’t mine. It was a gift.”

“It was a _mistake_ , that you _happened_ to give to me.”

“Okay,” he says sharply, as if it is anything but ‘okay’, and exhaling, gripping the arm of the couch so hard his knuckles turn white, then:

“Okay,” he says again, sighing, “I didn’t come here to go over the semantics of gift-giving, so—”

“Well, _you’re_ the one that brought it up,” Anne says, rolling her eyes and sipping the wine again.

( He’d made it at the one pottery class they’d been to, attended using a pass given to them by their couple’s therapist, one of their many suggestions.

Him, teasing her over the mound of clay she was trying to shape into a heart, her, telling him to stop looking over her shoulder. Him, putting palms covered in wet clay upon the sides of her back and her stomach that had been uncovered, left bare by the teardrop-shaped shirt she’d been wearing—it was summer.

‘I cannot _believe_ you just did that’ and him, laughing, her, delivering retribution in the form of smearing clay under his eye like paint, more on the hollow of his throat, them, eventually covered in clay, the floor near their feet covered in clay, her hand fisted in his white shirt, irrevocably stained, them, kissing.

The instructor, returning with the terrible disc-like creation he’d put in the kiln for Henry, clearing his throat. Henry, asking if they happened to have a shower anywhere in the art studio. Henry, saying ‘we’ll see ourselves out’, when the instructor hadn’t found that funny.

Them, being asked not to come back—it was a pass for five sessions.

So, no, she hadn’t wanted to see that every day in her cupboard—not after they’d broken up, at any rate. )

“How is it?” Henry asks, switching tracks, grip loosening on the red damask.

Anne knows he becomes most polite when he’s most frustrated. Casually polite when he’s comfortable, stiffly and deferentially polite when he’s uncomfortable—he is a guest, after all, and an uninvited one at that.

She takes another sip, swishing it around in her mouth—the most delicate red she’s ever tasted, like the trill of a flute; a burst of peach, a burst of blackberries, a burst of raspberries, sweet and smooth dessert flavors complimenting the spiky acidic elements.

“It’s okay,” she says, putting it down with a shrug, as if unimpressed.

“It’s ‘okay’? It was at _least_ three—”

“Don’t _tell_ me how much you paid for the wine,” she snaps, holding one hand up, smoking furiously with the other, blowing it out toward the ceiling in one heated puff, “you are _so_ tacky—”

“Well, it was not an ‘okay’ price, so if it’s not good, I’d _like_ to return it—”

“You’re going to return an opened bottle of wine? In a recession? Really?”

“I don’t think one bottle of wine is going to make or break them, Anne,” he says irritably, leaning over to recork the bottle, “and anyway, I kept the receipt—”

“It’s _great_ ,” she says, taking it by the neck before he can, cradling the bottle in her elbow, “it’s amazing, fantastic, wine, alright? _Goddamn_ you.”

One last angry exhale of smoke, and then she stubs it out, letting it roll into the dish with a flick and a flourish of her empty hand, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

* * *

“Great,” he says, stretching to pick up the ashtray, “trash in the same place?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Anne says crisply, arms still crossed, chin straightened out, bottle of wine tucked into the furthest right corner of the chair, tilted against her.

The sight would make him laugh if he were in a laughing mood.

Or if he didn’t think she’d kill him for it.

There are boxes lining the kitchen too, all the way in row hanging the corner across the dishwasher to the trash can, he steps on its pedal to open the lid and empties the contents of the tray.

* * *

“Oh—you _do_ have a cat.”

The creature in question is as soft-looking and grey as any well-worn teddy-bear, seated on the middle cushion like it’s its own personal throne; its head perked upwards inquisitively upon his arrival, staring at him with green eyes.

“What did I _say_?”

He takes his glass of mineral water in one hand, grabs one of the red damask pillows (thick and dense, he knows—he’s slept out here with them before, waiting for the sheets to dry or while knowing she was mad at him) in the other, and sits next to it, gingerly, placing the pillow onto his lap.

“You shouldn’t pet her,” Anne says coolly, “she doesn’t like strangers.”

“What’s her name?”

“ _Nyet_.”

* * *

He smiles, but looks like he’s trying to stop doing so, the corners of his mouth twitching:

“ _Nyet_?”

“Mm- _hm_. Any thoughts about that?” Anne asks, canting her head.

“None in particular.”

“It’s because she’s Russian.”

“Do you mean…blue Russian?”

“Whatever. I’d move farther away if I were you, she distrusts tall people.”

Well, she must-- she’d run away from George all the times he was here in the last year, and that was what the shelter had told her when Anne adopted her.

Nyet rubs her head against one cashmere-capped elbow, before leaping onto the pillow on Henry’s lap, settling in, kneading the pillow, too, and purring.

“You were saying?”

 _Traitorous little wench_ , she thinks, watching in disbelief as Nyet curls up, nudging her chin over his cupped hand.

* * *

“I didn’t come here to argue with you,” he says quietly, both calmed by and considerate of her cat, not wanting to excite her, “I’m sorry about that.”

It’s just wine, after all, just a cigarette, just an insult or two or three; she just drives him insane, is all, but he knew that and he came here anyway.

Anne’s face twitches, and she shrugs but barely, looking at him as if to say: _So_? As if to say: _It doesn’t matter_.

Henry can feel her hatred, hanging between them, heavy as rotten fruit.

 _Their_ hatred, he supposes. Because he hates her too, of course, his hatred feels like a bitterness in the throat, like an itch upon a particularly sensitive patch of skin.

But he hates himself more. Hates himself for trusting her, for loving her. For loving her still, despite everything.

There she sits: very beautiful (her skin clean and radiant, her long, dark hair hanging to her waist, the ends feathery as crow’s wings) and very proud (despite obviously reduced circumstances), and very much not his.

Not anymore.

“I wanted to hire you,” he says, finally, “to help me find someone.”

“Who?”

“My cousin. He’s pulled a runner, it seems…and it’s causing problems for me on a number of fronts.”

* * *

**2003**

Anne takes a deep breath and knocks on the door.

It opens, and he looks her up and down, assessing, before settling back onto her face.

“ _You_ again,” Henry says cheekily, with more familiarity than is warranted, looking at her sideways, “No binoculars?”

“No,” Anne says, fidgeting with the strap of her messenger bag, “I just wanted to tell you, that I spoke to…my client for you. And your father, you were right—”

“Oh,” he says, propping the door open with his hand, shrugging on his other side, “well, I knew I was right, so—”

“They gave me some advice on how to continue, and some things…to do, but I said it would be unethical if I didn’t tell you what they asked first, and that I wouldn’t unless you agreed.”

“Right. What were those?”

“Oh…um…to befriend you, mainly.”

“That all?” he asks, hands in the deep pockets of sweats, shoulder propping the door open, now.

“That, and as close a watch as you’d permit, basically. More an accompaniment/chauffeur thing than a…me, following you, thing.”

“So like a sponsor, but one without a life?”

“A sponsor?”

“It’s an AA thing. Never mind.”

“Oh, right, well…yeah, basically. And being paid. But yeah, same concept. Making sure you don’t drink. Except, reporting to them if you do.”

“Sponsor-snitch hybrid. Alright, anything else?”

“They wanted me to search your apartment.”

“Oh. Then by all means.”

* * *

Anne stands in his kitchen, still somewhat stunned at the turn of events that led her here—that _he_ led her into here.

“You seem surprised,” Henry says from his seat at the booth, leather arm-bands taut over muscular arms, one hand tucked under his chin, lit cigarette between his lips.

( _Mind if I smoke in—wait, this is my house_ , he’d said, laughing, lighting, smiling and watching her take in the sheer size of the penthouse space, the deluge of light spilling in from the sky-roof overhead. )

“I didn’t think you’d say yes,” she says, honestly, lifting the strap of her camera over and under her hair, tying the latter up with a band that’d been on her wrist.

“Well,” he says—a flick of cigarette, a sip of tea, then, “here’s the way I see it—what _are_ you doing?”

“Taking pictures,” she says, her back against the open fridge door.

“You’re looking for drink, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m a _drunk_. You’re not going to find it in there,” he says, laughing again.

“Well, I have to rule it out first, don’t I?”

Anne rummages around, moving a pizza box in her search.

“Weren’t you saying something?”

“What? Oh, yes—the way I see it, is that if I said no, and you resign, he’ll just hire someone else. A bloke again, probably, and that was always very annoying—they’d follow me into public restrooms and such.”

Anne traverses the floor and notices that the wood in one spot that peeks out under the faded red, hand-knotted rug, is lighter than the others.

“And, you know,” he continues, “I don’t really _need_ another friend, but if you’re going to be paid to befriend me, anyways—who am I to deprive you of that check? I assume it’s more than what you were getting before, yes?”

“Yes,” Anne says, bending down and examining it, running her hand over it and feeling where the floor-board comes loose.

She lifts the rug and lodges it out.

“Good job,” Henry says, passing over and walking around her to deposit his mug in the sink.

Anne lifts its contents (alcohol bottles, of Stoli and Bacardi and Grey Goose and Cristal and various wines) out, one by one, and examines them.

“They’re all empty,” she says, puzzled.

“Yes,” he calls out over his shoulder, rinsing his dish, “I know. They serve as a reminder.”

* * *

“I feel bad that you were assigned me,” Henry says absentmindedly, paging through what looks to be a script, while sitting on the velvet Victorian style couch of his living room.

“I’ve had worse,” Anne says, working on unscrewing the outside of his jukebox.

“It’d have been more exciting a few years ago, I think. I’m pretty boring, now. I stick to routine, more or less.” 

“It’s usually pretty boring, honestly,” Anne admits, lifting the glittering red cover off with both hands, “people wanting me to get proof of their spouse’s affair so they don’t get anything on their prenup, that sort of thing.”

“If it’s boring, why do you do it? Why not do something you love?”

“I did,” Anne says, snapping pictures of the inside (nothing out of the ordinary, but just to show she searched), “and then I wasn’t able to do it anymore.”

“Oh, yeah? Me, too,” Henry says, smiling ruefully, making a mark on the page in pencil, “but then, I suspect you already knew that.”

“That you played for Manchester United? Sure,” she says, getting to work laying the cover back on, “that you loved it, no.”

 _That he had a career-ending injury, yes_ , but it seems too personal to say aloud, so she doesn’t.

“I did,” he says, and she startles at how near the voice sounds (and also, the irrational fear that she _did_ say it aloud—but no, he’s responding to ‘you loved it’).

“Sorry,” Henry says, bending down carefully, “I didn’t mean to scare you. Here.”

He holds the frame for her and she uses the screwdriver to twist the first screw back in.

“What did _you_ love?” he asks as she twists.

“Ballet. I got pretty far with it, too.”

“What happened?”

“Labral tear, in my hip.”

“I’m sorry.”

She smiles, but it feels more like a wince, so she stops.

“Yeah,” Anne says, with a casualness she doesn’t feel, “so, that was Plan A. And I have an English degree,” she continues, laughing self-deprecatingly, honing in on the screw near where he’s holding the cover steady, “which I don’t really use, as you can see. That was Plan B.”

“So you did graduate,” he says, grinning, “congrats.”

“Yes. I’ve only had to use that card once before you for a cover story, you know. Security guard on campus. And _he_ didn’t even look for a year on it.”

“Well, you look young. He probably wasn’t that suspicious in the first place.”

* * *

They finish up and he slides in a quarter before making his selection. The intro of _We Will Rock You_ starts to reverberate as she starts to put her camera away, fastening her bag closed.

Henry walks her to the front door.

“Hey,” he says, as she pulls her jacket from one of the hooks on his wall, “you read, right?”

“Do I read? Yes, of course,” she says, buttoning it up, “every day, all the time.”

“Then you do use it.”

Anne doesn’t know what he’s talking about at first, then remembers—her English degree.

And she thinks, well…that it was kind of him to say.

“Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” he says, smiling again:

“I almost forgot I _had_ a jukebox.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I know this probably isn't the update most people wanted-- but it was what inspired me most, as of late. Somehow it got written, even though I should have finished my reading for class first... oop. 
> 
> title's not the best, but had a hard time thinking of one. reginald pole will be significant in the story (can probably guess how, given anne's line of work...but if not, will be revealed next chap)
> 
> (blanket warning for adult concepts / dark humor in this one, strong language, etc.. will probably eventually be rated M)
> 
> What will hopefully become 10 chapters or so, as I've mapped most of the plot and backstory out. Probably will be working from two different timelines each chapter, one from 2003-2007 and 2008- . It's the way that made the most sense to me, and the former will set up the latter a bit. 
> 
> Any questions about other works can be yielded to my blog, @ofcouragehault. Sorry I've been so slow to respond as of late, have been busy with uni. 
> 
> And hope someone likes this half as much as I've liked brainstorming it. Cheers, x.


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